Animal Collective’s My Girls has been looped on my iPod non-stop for weeks in wild anticipation for Oddsac, a psychedelic visual-musical series by the NYC-based band. The film, a study of stress, agitation, and alienation, did not disappoint. Directed by Danny Perez, it is an hour-long journey across time, movement, motion, and color.
Oddsac is a collection of images, linked by cinematic tropes turned antagonistic. A vulnerable girl in a dangerously small room, the walls leaking tar. A lone man in a field of stones, playing the drums in tympanic crescendo. A vampiric figure oozing paint-blood before dissolving into nothingness. A family camping, eating marshmallows before white goo spews from their mouths, consuming them. A man cooking with four young women before screams and fear devolve into a food fight.
Both music and images are intense and visceral, encouraging an exploration of the stressors that antagonize us. Though at times the visual/auditory combination is slightly oppressive, the discomfort is artful and beautiful.
Bio: Rachael Goldberg is an intern at Guernica.